Systems, methods and computer program products for providing and verifying purchase offers

The present disclosure is a 371 U.S. National Phase of International Patent Application No. PCT/EP2021/064351, filed May 28, 2021, entitled “SYSTEMS, METHODS AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCTS FOR PROVIDING AND VERIFYING PURCHASE OFFERS,” which claims priority to Swedish Patent Application No. 2050619-2, filed May 29, 2020, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

In various embodiments, the present invention is generally directed to systems, methods and computer program products for providing in-store product information and purchase offers. An exemplary control system, or backend system, is configured to receive, from a consumer's mobile device, event data indicating the consumer's interest in purchasing products available at a store and then subsequently provide purchase offers based on previously obtained event data, and an optically readable code used for validating or verifying the purchase offer in the store. In embodiments, an optically readable code is displayed on the customer's mobile device in response to an event identified by an application program running on the customer's mobile device, where the contents of the optically readable code provided to a customer is adapted to be used for validating or verifying that the customer is authorized to take advantage of the purchase offer. In embodiments, the present invention relates to the acquisition of an image identifying a first product and, in response to the acquired image, by obtaining event data representing the event of acquiring the image and/or a subsequent event identified by the application program, the consumer is provided with a purchase offer including at least a second product different from the first product identified by the acquired image.

Advances in mobile technology have enhanced in-store shopping activities by allowing consumers to purchase items in real-time. For example, consumers now have access to the application programs (APPs) on mobile devices such as cell phones, smart phones and personal data assistants that facilitate the identification and purchase of items without physical presentation of the item to a point-of-sale terminal. So-called “scan and buy” APPs eliminate the frustrating experience of waiting in a check-out line and can increase sales by eliminating when consumers remove items from their shopping cart prior to checkout.

Mobile devices such as mobile phones permit retailers to connect with their customers and barcodes, such as QR codes, supply the interactive means to accomplish this. These barcodes can easily direct a retail establishment's customers to their Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social networking accounts. For example, a QR code could take customers to a mobile ecommerce site or a product demo. Barcodes such as QR codes may be indispensable when a retailer has online campaigns, advertisements, or TV commercials. QR codes can also be used to encourage customers to purchase products by relaying valuable information and alerting them to upcoming sales, unique promotions, and offering them an interactive view of new products on the way. Retailers can also utilize QR codes to capture important customer information. For example, retailers can include a simple sign-up feature on the QR destination page to encourage visitors to enter their email address for special deals.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, client databases and methods use various information technologies to learn a customer's preferences, offer products and special deals to the customer according to those preferences, and to foster or reward customer loyalty. In order to maintain a high level of customer loyalty, it is desirable for a retailer to enhance a customer's in-store experience by anticipating her preferences and offering customized services.

Merchants, especially those that derive their revenue from online sales, are keenly interested in spending significant marketing dollars analyzing data generated by these events to increase their conversion rates. Once in a physical store, however, such analysis techniques typically disappear. Consumers can pick up, view, analyze and even open a product, place it in their basket for a while, and the merchant has no information about the event. Such events may provide even more insights into the shopping habits and product preferences of a consumer than online activities.

Consumers are beginning to rely on web-based solutions as an alternative to traditional in-store shopping. As a result, electronic commerce has expanded the focus of large retailers by offering on-line purchasing as a method for providing a broader assortment of products and pricing options to consumers. Typically, this occurs outside of the retail establishment which in turn eliminates in-store merchandising and promotion opportunities.

Retailers are constantly exploring ways to communicate with their shoppers utilizing mobile technologies. Many applications focus on promotion messaging that encourages consumers to shop in their stores. Many mobile applications for shoppers are offered by third party service providers. While the service may vary, they are typically offer based and utilize location services with the aid of zip codes and global positioning systems (GPS). These applications target interest such as store locators, weekly circulars, digital coupons or offers, generic item pricing, and the like.

Current technology offers consumer search options and the ability to find items, locate where they are offered and at what price. However, these pricing applications offer retailers little benefit unless they are a low-price leader in the market. Therefore, there is a need for systems and methods adapted to enhance the costumer's shopping experience by providing product information and purchase offers in real-time to the consumer while in-store and where the offers are adapted to be personalized and relevant for the customer in being based on the consumer's shown interest in a product and previous shopping behavior, and such that the consumer may easily purchase products in-store.

Moreover, customers are individuals who usually have personal preferences for purchasing different products. The individuals often visit known similar stores to purchase their preferred products. Merchants desire to capture an insight into a future propensity of an event in relation to the individual and construct purchase offers accordingly. Based on this insight, the merchants can drive personalized recommendations and provide purchase offers to individuals in real-time while the customer is in the store to thereby improve their sales revenue. Conventionally, these personalized recommendations and offers may not be relevant, as the recommendations may characterize offers from merchants located in places distant from the individual. Thus, the relevance of these personalized recommendations and offers can be further improved by using knowledge about the historical shopping behaviour of the individual as well as knowledge about previously recorded purchases by other customers of products the individual shows an interest or previously recorded purchases of products associated with the product the individual shows an interest.

What is needed is a system and methods for providing a customer with in-store purchase offers reflecting the customer's shown interest and shopping behaviour and presented to the customer while the customer is present in a store where the at least one product of the purchase offer are available.

What is further needed is a system and methods for validly and securely validating or verifying, in real-time and to a staff member at the store and/or the cashier system or computer system of the store, that a customer, or user of a mobile device, can take advantage of a purchase offer, e.g. a customized or personalized purchase offer, provided to the customer while in the store.

The system, methods and computer program products of the technology disclosed is adapted to provide a customer with purchase offers in response to event data indicating the customer's interest in a product while the customer is present in a store in which products of the purchase offer are available.

In embodiments, the technology disclosed relates to a system, methods and computer program products for capturing and acting in response to a sequence of events or subsequently received event data, e.g. automatically and in real-time, in order to display data representing a purchase offer on the screen of the customer's mobile device.

In embodiments, data for generating and/or displaying the purchase offer, or representing the purchase offer, is provided by the control system to a predetermined group of mobile devices including the mobile device in response to the control system receiving a barcode or image data following the scanning of a barcode, or acquiring of an image, associated with the physical product item in the store where the barcode or image is adapted for identifying, by the control system, a first product or product category to which the physical product item belongs.

In embodiments, the purchase offer may then be determined, retrieved and/or created/constructed by the control system in response to identifying the first product or first product category and data for generating and/or displaying the purchase offer on the displays of the predetermined group of mobile devices may be transmitted in response to determining, retrieving and/or creating/constructing the purchase offer. The purchase offer may then have been previously created/constructed at least partly based on event data received, by the control system, from a plurality of mobile devices among the predetermined group of mobile devices including the mobile device.

In embodiments, the purchase offer is constructed prior to at least one of said step of receiving image or barcode or data representing said image or barcode associated with a physical first product item being offered for sale by the store and receiving event data associated with the first product or first product category. The purchase offer may then be at least partly based on at least one of the historical shopping behavior of the user of the mobile device and event data received from other mobile devices.

In embodiments, the purchase offer is constructed by the control system in response to at least one of the events of receiving said image or barcode or data representing said image or barcode associated with a physical first product item being offered for sale by the retail store and receiving event data associated with said first product or first product category. The purchase offer may then also be at least partly based on at least one of obtained event data reflecting the historical shopping behavior of the user of said mobile device and event data received from other mobile devices.

In embodiments, the control system may then be configured to dynamically create/construct or change purchase offers based on the event data that the control system receives from mobile devices and/or contents that the control system receives or retrieves from social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. In certain embodiments, the purchase offers may be dynamically created/constructed and changed by the control system based on event data received from the plurality of mobile devices within a group of mobile devices, e.g. a predetermined group of mobile devices, and the plurality of mobile devices in the group of mobile devices are provided with the purchase offer in response to the control system receiving, from at least one of the mobile devices of the group, a scanned barcode or acquired image for identifying a first product or first product category.

In embodiments, the technology disclosed relates to a system, methods and computer program products for capturing and acting in response to a sequence of events or subsequently received event data, e.g. automatically and in real-time, in order to display data for validating or verifying a purchase offer on the screen of the customer's mobile device.

In embodiments, the technology disclosed relates to a system, methods and computer program products for capturing and acting in response to a sequence of events or subsequently received event data, e.g. automatically and in real-time, in order to display an optically readable code for validating or verifying on the screen of the customer's mobile device that the customer is authorized to take advantage of a purchase offer provided to the customer while in the store.

In aspects, the user of a mobile device who shows up at the cahier's desk with physical product items corresponding to the at least one product item of a purchase offer provided to the user's mobile device is subsequently, and in response to further event data received from the same mobile device, provided with an optically readable code adapted for securely validating or verifying to a staff member of the store and/or a cashier system or a computer system of the store, that the user of the mobile device is authorized to take advantage of the purchase offer, e.g. a customized or personalized purchase offer.

In embodiments, the control system provides the optically readable to a plurality of mobile devices within a group of mobile devices, e.g. a predetermined group of mobile devices, where the plurality of mobile devices in the group of mobile devices are provided with the optically readable code, or data for generating and/or displaying the optically readable code, in response to the control system receiving, from at least one of the mobile devices of the group, event data indicating the acceptance, by the user of the mobile device, of a purchase offer previously provided by the control system to the mobile device in response to receiving, from the mobile device, a scanned barcode or an image adapted for identifying, by the control system, a first product associated with the purchase offer.

In aspects, the technology disclosed relates to a method of receiving, by a control system or backend system, event data from a mobile device and, in response to receiving the event data. transmitting, from the control system, an optically readable code or data adapted for displaying an optically readable code to be presented on the display of the mobile device, where the optically readable code, when scanned, read or recognized, is adapted to validate or verify that the user of the mobile device is authorized to take advantage of a purchase offer. The purchase offer may then have been provided to the mobile device through the transmission of data representing the purchase offer from the control system and in response to the acquiring or scanning of an image or barcode associated with a physical product item in the store where the verification by the acquiring or scanning is performed. The event data transmitted from the mobile device to the control system may then have been transmitted by the mobile device in response to identifying, by the mobile device, at least one event indicating the acceptance, by the user of the mobile device, of the purchase offer provided to the mobile device.

In aspects, the technology disclosed relates to a control system, or backend system, configured to receive event data from a mobile device and, in response to receiving the event data. transmit an optically readable code or data adapted for displaying an optically readable code to be presented on the display of the mobile device, where the optically readable code, when scanned, read or recognized, is adapted to validate or verify that the user of the mobile device is authorized to take advantage of a purchase offer. The purchase offer may then have been provided to the mobile device through the transmission of data representing the purchase offer from the control system and in response to the acquiring or scanning of an image or barcode associated with a physical product item in the store where the verification by the acquiring or scanning is performed. The event data transmitted from the mobile device to the control system may then have been transmitted by the mobile device in response to identifying, by the mobile device, at least one event indicating the acceptance, by the user of the mobile device, of the purchase offer provided to the mobile device.

In embodiments, the technology disclosed relates to method for providing a user of a mobile device with a purchase offer including at least one product available to customers in a store and while the user is present in the store, said method comprising the steps of:

In embodiments, the technology disclosed relates to method for providing a user of a mobile device with a purchase offer including at least one product available to customers in a store and while the user is present in the store, said method comprising:

In embodiments, the technology disclosed relates to method for providing a user of a mobile device with a purchase offer including at least one product available to customers in a store and while the user is present in the store, said method comprising:

In certain aspects, the technology disclosed is directed to facilitating the provision of purchase offers in real-time, and more particularly to methods and a system for offering an enhanced shopping experience in a store based on event data reflecting the shopping behaviour of the customer receiving the purchase offer as well as event data received from other customers, i.e. other customer's mobile devices, and which indicates the shopping behaviour of these other customers.

In other aspects, the technology disclosed is directed to the task of validating or verifying that a customer is authorized to take advantage of a purchase offer, and more particularly to method and a system for capturing and acting on event data to provide secure verification of the customer's authorization to take advantage of the purchase offer.

In embodiments, the displayed data representing the purchase offer may then include the purchase of both a first product which physical product item associated barcode was scanned or read in the store by the mobile device receiving the purchase offer and the purchase of an product item of at least one second product which associated barcode the mobile device was not scanned or read before receiving the purchase offer. After first receiving and then accepting the purchase offer, the customer typically needs to fetch at least one physical item of the second product and bring the at least one physical item of the first product and the at least one physical item of the second product to the cash register desk or and/or a self-checkout terminal, where the image data representing the purchase offer is shown or scanned/read by a device to validate or verify that the user of the mobile device is authorized to take advantage of the purchase offer.

In embodiments, the provided purchase offer, including at least one item of the first product, which associated barcode was scanned before receiving the purchase, and at least one item of a second product different from the first product, where the combined purchase offer is at least partly based on previously received event data, i.e. received before the customer entered the store. The combined offer, including both the first product which physical product item's associated barcode label was scanned or read by the mobile device and the second product may then be created/constructed at least partly based on identified and/or received events and/or event data obtained before the customer entered the store, where the events and/or event data was identified by and/or received from at least one of the customer's own mobile device and the mobile devices of other customers. The previously identified and/or received events and/or event data may then be associated with previously performed purchases of items of the first product and of the second product, e.g. combined or aggregated purchases including at least one item of the first product and at least one item of the second product.

In aspects, the system, methods adapted for validly and computer program products of the technology disclosed are adapted for securely validating or verifying, to the staff member at the store and/or the cashier system of the store before payment, that a customer, or user of a mobile device, can take advantage of a purchase offer, e.g. a customized or personalized purchase offer, provided to the customer in response to identified events associated with the customer's mobile device and while the customer is present in the store.

In embodiments, the technology disclosed is directed to validating or verifying that a customer is authorized to take advantage of a purchase offer by providing a scannable and/or readable verification code, and more particularly to method and a system for capturing and acting on event data to provide secure verification of the customer's authorization to take advantage of the purchase offer by providing the scannable and/or readable verification code in response to events identified by the application program running on the mobile device. In embodiments and after receiving an optically readable code which contents at least partly represents the purchase offer, the customer typically needs to fetch the at least one physical product item of the purchase offer and bring the at least one physical item to the cash register desk or and/or a self-checkout terminal. At the desk and/or terminal, the image data representing the purchase offer, e.g. the optically readable code which contents represents the purchase offer, is displayed on the screen of the mobile device and is then shown to a staff member at the cash register desk or is scanned or read by a device. The scanning or reading may performed by using a device communicatively connected to the cashier system of the store, thereby validating or verifying that the user of the mobile device is authorized to take advantage of the purchase offer comprising the at least one physical product item brought to the cash register desk or and/or a self-checkout terminal.

In aspects, the technology disclosed is directed to a system and a method for providing a user of a mobile device with a purchase offer including at least one product available to customers in a store and while the user is present in the store, said method comprising:

In embodiments, the technology disclosed is directed to a system configured to and a method which comprises the step of:

In embodiments, the purchase offer is including at least the purchase of an item of said first product or first product category.

In embodiments, the purchase offer is including at least the purchase of an item of a second product or second product category different from said first product or first product category.

In embodiments, the technology disclosed is directed to a system configured to and a method which comprises the step of:

In aspects, the technology disclosed is directed to a system and a method for providing a user of a mobile device with a purchase offer including at least one product available to customers in a store and while the user is present in the store, said method comprising:

In embodiments, the technology disclosed is directed to a system configured to and a method which comprises the step of:

Embodiments of the technology disclosed are directed to a system, a backend/control system, an application program installed on a mobile device and methods for providing, by the backend/control system, a purchase offer and then transmitting an optically readable/scannable verification code, by the backend/control system, following the acceptance of a purchase offer by the user of the mobile device and in response to event data identified by the application program and which represents at least one occurred event and/or action performed by the user of the mobile device (customer) while the user/customer is present in the store.

In aspects, the technology disclosed relates to a control system for providing a user of a mobile device with purchase offers including products available to customers in a store and while the user is present in the store, said control system is comprising or is at least one of operatively connected and communicatively coupled to a database and is configured to:

In embodiments, the technology disclosed relates to a control system for providing a user of a mobile device with purchase offers including products available to customers in a store and while the user is present in the store, said control system is configured to:

In embodiments, the purchase offer transmitted in step b above includes at least the purchase of an item of a second product or second product category different from said first product or first product category.

In embodiments, the technology disclosed relates to a method comprising the steps of:

In certain embodiments, the technology disclosed relates to a control system for providing a user of a mobile device with purchase offers including products available to customers in a retail store and while the user is present in the retail store, said control system is comprising or is at least one of operatively connected and communicatively coupled to a database and is configured to:

In certain embodiments of the methods, systems and computer program products of the technology disclosed, the scanning or reading of the displayed optically readable code may automatically initiate a payment transaction for purchasing the at least one product item according to the price and conditions of the purchase offer provided to the customer's mobile device.

In embodiments, the event data received by the control system represents an event including at least one of the events of:

In embodiments, said purchase offer transmitted by the control system include at least the purchase of an item of a second product or second product category different from said first product or first product category.